Religion Dispatches
…ven listen to the album for fear that my mother would know that I was even listening to such language. But, as Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler, Jr. rightly pointed out in a recent interview, when we’re forbidden in the Ten Commandments from taking God’s name in vain, it’s not just outlawing such phrases as “God damn,” or “Oh, my God!” For Israel, they knew, first and foremost, not to speak falsely about God. It’s not…
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…rown Blackwell, who began preaching in her family’s Rochester Congregationalist Church as a child in the 1830s (and who became the first woman to be ordained by a major Protestant denomination), and evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who established the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles before the Great Depression, which attracted millions of visitors and whose charismatic preaching style made her one of the country’s most famous women. Yet, despite t…
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…parkly lights can make any dive feel like home. So, Cheers has to make the list for great Christmas episodes. Limiting myself to only one Saturday Night Live sketch, the best would have to be Alec Baldwin’s Schewddy Balls. As much as Christmas is about humor, it’s also about the warm and fuzzies. Nothing delivers the warm and fuzzies (along with pubescent awkwardness) better than The Wonder Years. Speaking of awkward, the most awkwardl…
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…CPAC’s performative divisiveness fool you—the candidates present only a slightly different brand of authoritarianism or even fascism, but the core of their ideology is the same. Both are anti-democratic, pro-natalist, ethno-Nationalist, right-wing Christian, and authoritarian. And when it comes to those things, the Republican Party is not divided at all: they present a pretty united front. Like a closed fist….
Read More…un away from children who spray them with water. A tourist sign in English lists the must-see sights. High on the list is “New Stupa for ashes of Buddha’s bone.” A long stone staircase littered with the pinkish petals of bougainvillea trees winds up the mountain. At the top of the stairs is the impressive, white stupa, the centerpiece of the site, and the scene of the crime. Older stupas are lined up a short walk away. On good days, the mountain d…
Read MoreWith Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann at the top of the list of Republican presidential hopefuls, “dominionism” has garnered a good bit of media attention—Michelle Goldberg’s piece “A Christian Plot for Domination?” at the Daily Beast, Ryan Lizza’s piece “The Transformation of Michele Bachmann” at The New Yorker, and a piece at the Texas Observer, “Rick Perry’s Army of God,” by Forrest Wilder. The increase in coverage of the religious right’s lon…
Read More…757. Below is a run-down of some of the worst provisions of the bill. The list also notes similarities between sections of HB 757 and bills that have been introduced in other states across the county: One section of the bill would have given faith-based organizations, including schools, universities, and certain non-profits, the right to refuse (1) to rent property for events that they find objectionable; and (2) to provide “social, educational,…
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…ncluding Susan Harding and Ray Horton, ponder how we should read fundamentalist fictions, fictions by fundamentalist authors, or about fundamentalism itself. The point of paying attention to literature by Christian Right authors is it helps us better understand what’s going on in America today. In his Memoir Crazy for God, apostate ex-evangelical and former leader of the Christian Right, Frank Schaeffer, who helped politically activate a generatio…
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…lf is most likely no true believer in the law, but rather pragmatically using widespread popular Russian homophobia in pursuit of specific domestic and foreign policy goals—to placate hardline Orthodox believers and to keep the more radical, nationalist right at bay at home, while sending a clear message to the West that Russia won’t be pressured into adopting liberal norms. Like this story? Your tax-deductible $5 or $10 will help us pay writers,…
Read More…critics have leveled against him, diverting them instead to a predictable list of conservative bugbears and the need for Republican leadership to see them addressed. This is not argument so much as evasion and rationalization. If Wayne Grudem says very little in favor of Donald Trump’s morality, it’s only because—let’s be honest—there is very little to say. Indeed, by Grudem’s standard, it’s difficult to imagine who wouldn’t qualify as a moral ca…
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